


And I will still live here

by sapphicarchivist



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: (kinda a canon divergence?? More my theories), After the eyepocalypse, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, Canon-Typical Worms (The Magnus Archives), F/F, Fix-It of Sorts, Fluff, Gen, Hospitals, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, M/M, Scars, Temporary Amnesia, Temporary Character Death, i mean a few people die (but it’s Jonah magnus/elias), or worm scars I guess, post mag 197
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-08
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-14 04:34:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29911494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sapphicarchivist/pseuds/sapphicarchivist
Summary: Jon and martin go along with annabelles plan to take the entities to a new world however annabelle cane didn’t expect to be left behind,  she also didn’t expect what else the entities would take with them (or leave)Or: a very unlikely theory for season 5/an au where when the powers leave the dimension they take the parts of avatars that were fear with them, leaving behind what was human. In some cases this brought back the human remnants of avatars, like jane. Also they knew each other before the whole worm/spider thing bc I say so
Relationships: Annabelle Cane/Jane Prentiss, Jonathan Sims/Martin Blackwood
Comments: 3
Kudos: 2





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fic that I’m posting on here so any feedback or comments are greatly appreciated!! I’m not a very good writer and don’t usually do this but this idea has kinda been the only thing I could think about till I wrote it. Also I wasn’t quite sure how to tag this so I’ll also list content warnings for each chapter :) also sorry if this is formatted weirdly or anything, I’ll try and fix it  
> Title is from i will by mitski bc I cannot title anything and it seemed kinda fitting  
> WARNINGS FOR THIS CHAPTER:   
> there are some descriptions of injury (not super graphic but there are brief descriptions of blood) and an overall theme of injury  
> There’s also quite a bit of discussion/description of grief and self worth issues, largely based on my own experiences   
> I might update this depending on how happy I am w the rest of my writing
> 
> Anyway hope you enjoy this :)

The first time Jane prentiss met Annabelle Cane she remembered feeling as though her blood had decided to flow in a different direction. The young woman had wandered through the door of the shop she had worked at and Jane thought the very atmosphere must belong to her. 

The annoying, jangly wind chime that usually signalled the arrival of a customer rang clear (though when her coworker went to clean later that day it had been caked in cobweb). Annabelle somehow walked taller than the other customers, with the easy, fluid grace of someone who knows exactly what the next moment holds. 

She had seemed draped in silver; fine, glistening threads lacing through her hair and settled over the soft curve of her shoulders. At first Jane thought the glossy, fat beads that dangled from her ears were elaborate earrings woven with chain, that is till they opened their eyes, continuing to spin their delicate web about the woman’s face. She had been quite mesmirised with the way they floated from her ear to the sharp angle of her jaw to her lacy black collar till she’d begun to talk. 

Her smile stretched slightly too far, and seemed too pointy. Her voice was honeyed and each word flowed to the next, Jane could tell she was a practiced liar, though she wasn’t sure she cared. Jane couldn’t help but stare at her eyes, they were each a deep, glossy black and jane couldn’t have told you how many she had. 

The second time Jane Prentiss met annabelle cane, she didn’t know she was Jane Prentiss. Well not entirely at least. Looking back she could only see the vague memory of loneliness, feeling herself drowning and she had been so cold. After that she could remember itching, movement; well not remember as much as she could feel it.  
She could still feel hands - her own?- raking against her skin, trying to get it out to make it still again. But it had been so warm after that, that bone deep loneliness gone- not gone but eclipsed by something more, something truer, multitudes. After that Jane could only see flames.  


So she looked forward and at the scene before her. As far as she could tell she was in a house, or at least what seemed like a house. The walls seemed to jut at odd angles and if she looked to hard at the floor it began to shift and swim. At least what she could see of the floor beneath the heaps and heaps of tangled, black mass. 

What was that? For a moment it seemed to writhe as if it were worms. Why did that not bother her? Jane shook her head till the floor became still again. Kneeling down, she took a handful of the stuff in her cupped hands. Creasing her brow she peered at them till it clicked. It was tape. Piles and piles of tangled magnetic tape. Warped and melted but unmistakeable. Jane recoiled slightly at the plasticky, burned smell as she places her handful to her side.

That’s when she sees her. 

A thin figure half shrouded in the piles of tape that lie bundled around her. Jane walks closer, noticing how the bundle of plastic is shaking with the sobs that wrack the figures frame. Without thinking, she settles herself on the floor beside the woman and gently, slowly begins to unwind the tape from her shoulders.

The woman looks up, gasping through her tears and Jane finally sees her.  


Warm dark brown skin, hair pale as spider silk and sharp, flint grey eyes. Crisscrossing, no, stitching and spiralling across her shoulders are a network of thin, pale scars. Jane can’t help but notice that their precise, near surgical lines form a spiderweb draping down to her shoulder blades. 

The girl locks eyes with her, the tears finally subsiding but no less shaky, she shifts in her seat on the floor. Behind her the mounds of magnetic tape retain the line of her shoulders where she had leant, though Jane sees the huge, many legged imprint that extends from it in no way fits the girl in front of her.  
“Where are we?” She asks pointedly and Jane can here an almost excited, hopeful thrum in her low voice. She also has a feeling the we she speaks of are not Jane. Before Jane can reply her eyes widen and begin to well with tears again.  
“Not here. No - no the mother knew it knew it promised, it said I’d go with them it knew it-“ she was cut of by another shaking sob as she fell backward into the tapes. 

Almost automatically Jane reached an arm behind her, drawing her closer and away from th emounds of warped plastic.  
For some reason Jane couldn’t quite place she hated the idea of the girl touching them; they felt like a dead animal, some snake or spider left for the vultures. Annabelle- yes that was her name she was sure- didn’t try to avoid janes embrace, seeming too tired, too hopeless to care. Besides, Jane remembered taking care of things, she remembered she was good at it. 

Jane wasn’t sure how long they had stayed on the floor like that, but by the time she her arms were tired annabelle had quieted her murmuring. Jane had also noticed what she was wearing, a torn red dress and the dozens apon dozens of small circular scars and puncture wounds that littered her skin. Before she had time to worry about that she felt liquid spreading over her dress where Annabelle had been leaning. She craned her neck and saw a thick rust coloured stain smearing over Annabelle's cropped silvery hair. Gently pulling away from Annabelle she began to talk.

“You’r-“  
“You’re Jane prentiss aren’t you?”  
“I suppose.”  
‘I thought you were dead. I SAW you die in those archives- the tapes they heard they sa-“  
“You’re bleeding”  
“Oh- what?” 

Annabelle seemed wholely confused at this statement just looking at Jane as if she were joking. Gingerly, Jane gestured to the side of Annabelle’s head. Annabelle reached up, still not entirely convinced till she let out a short gasp of pain at the touch, long slender fingers coming away sticky and crimson.

“I suppose we ought to go to a hospital”  
Jane nodded, trying to stay calm as more of annabelles white hair became stained.  
“Do you have a phone?”  
Annabelle nodded, pointing to a large, black thing with more coiled cable than Jane was sure it should have. For a second Jane thought she must have stolen it from a phone box.  
“Hi? Emergency services?”  
Yes, what is your emergency  
“Erm well my friend has a rather big head injury and neither if us are sure where she got it and honestly I’m not ev-“  
Calm down, don’t worry. Now where exactly are you  
Jane looked to annabelle, who mouthed something  
“Hilltop road, oxford”  
——  
“Excuse me?”  
I’m sorry but What exactly are your names  
‘I’m Jane Prentiss and she’s Annabelle Cane”  
Wait just a second, I’m not sure I’m equipped to handle this  
“Excuse me? Can you send an ambulance or something?”  
The line goes dead  
Annabelle looks up at Jane, who puts the phone down and walks over to annabelle, twisting her hands in worry  
“I think they’re sending someone”  
Annabelle leans on Janes shoulder, carding a shaky hand though Jane’s curly black hair.  
“I know you.”  
“I think i might too” murmurs Jane as she realises she can think back without that thick fog. 

It hits her far too suddenly, the archives, fire, itching and that damned wasp nest worming its songs into her ear. The day she realised she couldn’t remember when her skin last felt still, last felt clean. 

But most of all she can remember Annabelle Cane. Walking into her shop, listening to her complaints about their landlord and the bugs in her flat with a knowing sorrow Jane now understood. Annabelle soothing her when her skin was eaten through, before she accepted the hive.

“But where are my-“  
“Not sure, same place as my web i suppose’ Annabelle laughed hollowly at that, pulling her shirt over the largest patch of silvery spiralling scars. She was not a person used to being unsure. “I’ve missed you”  


By the time the knock on the door came, the pair were curled up on a sofa Jane had managed to unearth from the tape, Annabelle’s head resting on Jane’s ruined dress. The sofa seemed old to Jane and it was dotted with oddly shaped burns, even one she swears could be a handprint. 

Jane was painfully aware of Annabelle's heartbeat and kept anxiously glancing at the door. In stark contrast to her girlfriend, annabelle seemed on the edge of sleep (which worried Jane even more).  
The knock was sharp and loud, and didn’t wait to be let in. Three people barged through the door; a tall muscular woman with skin a bit lighter than Annabelle’s and a hand tensed over a pocket and two men, one slight and tired looking holding the others hand protectively.  
“Annabelle cane” the thinner man spat, eyes narrowed, not walking any closer to them than the hallway. “I didn’t expect to see you here.” Jane senses by here he doesn’t just mean the house.  
“Did you honestly expect her to have told us the truth jon?” The other man sighs, he doesn’t seem as angry as his partner, just resigned.  
“I didn’t” annabelle interjects rather defensively, raising her head a little from janes chest. Jane tries not to notice her sharp intake of breath as she does.  
“Of course you didn’t” he- jon replies. Why does that name sound so familiar?  
“I mean I didn’t expect to still be here” she is trying hard to keep her voice level and neat, not show how she stumbled a little searching for the words or how it lacks its usual knowing smirk. Jon seems taken aback at that, stepping toward them and pulling martin with him. That’s when jane realises.  
“Archivist” she doesn’t have time to think before she recognises him.  
He looks the pair up and down, seeming to note the scars littering her skin, her scarlet dress torn and stained. Jane notices he has similar scars, though white with age and less than a quarter in quantity of hers.  
“Jane prentiss” he seems to consider adding to this before the woman has stepped toward them and looks pointedly at jon and martin.  
“She’s bleeding” says the woman, matter of factly.  
“Wasn’t sure either of us were human enough to bleed anymor-“ he quips almost nostalgically, before cutting himself off with a soft “oh” of realisation and smiling slightly.  
“But where are those spiders?” The other man asks, looking around furtively  
“I’m not sure that matters right now martin, they’re obviously not here.”  


The woman- Basira jane thinks- loops annabelles arm round her shoulder and indicates for jane to do the same, guiding the couple to a van parked outside, emblazoned with “what the ghost” along the side in a cartoonish purple script. She practically shoves jon and martin into the front seats, jane overhears a curt conversation 

[ ‘it’ll do you good not to argue for 10 minutes’ ‘but i can’t Know the way there’ ‘use the eyes that are actually in your skull for once”]  
evidently not trusting them not to shout at the two, before guiding them into the backseat and sitting opposite.  
“Basira Hussain, section 31.” She sounds competent, and the hand she extends is considerably less marked than Jon’s and even then by scars that seem significantly more normal. Neither of them take it.

“So?” She asks.  
“The web didn't need me anymore. I thin- I think it took the part of me that was it with them” annabelle struggles not to start crying again. “The mother of puppets doesn’t owe anyone anything. It’s my fault i considered myself different” she elaborates, trailing off with a sharp intake of air. Annabelle leans back into jane, gripping a handful of scarlet fabric in an attempt to steady herself. Basira leans forward, looking concerned and tries to get a better look at the injury on Annabelle’s head. 

Jane wraps her arms around Annabelle, pressing a scarred hand to the crook of her neck; Annabelle calms a little at this and her breath slows slightly. 

Jane tries to remember how it felt to sustain and calm so many of her hive, doing the same for annabelle is like moving a long dormant muscle, although somehow that itching fear that so often filled jane isn’t present. Basira doesn’t ask more questions till they arrive at the hospital. Jane feels as though she’s in some strange dream- or rather a nightmare- as basira leads them to a waiting room, the only thing real to her is Annabelle pressed against her shoulder.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter:  
> \- some (quite brief) description of worm scars/injuries  
> \- discussion of grief & loss (annabelles pov)  
> \- death/the end mentions  
> \- fainting, injury & pain (not graphic) 
> 
> This is quite short, I’ve just been thinking about the aftermath of the change for not avatars and also the impact of different domains (might write more about his but for each domain?)

When they arrive at the hospital annabelle feels little but pain and janes arms against her back. Well, there’s that other thing too. The thing that annabelle doesn’t want to think about, that deep, aching loss that radiates through her in cold waves. The odd lightness where layer upon layer of cobwebs should sit. 

She feels as though she has suddenly become untethered and is floating out to sea. She supposes she has been, cut off from her web, no not hers, just the web.  


She no longer can feel the pull of a thousand familiar threads of knowledge, of stolen paranoia, of power lacing through her. Her ears ring with the absence of familiar scuttling legs, the distinct lack of squealing, overlapping tape. There is no tightly woven web to catch her fall, and for the first time in years Annabelle can hear her heart beating blood about her body. 

Annabelles limbs are heavy, she has always been the puppet master, the weaver though today she realises just how many strings had been holding her up. For the first time in a long long time annabelle is wholly human.

She feels herself being supported as she half walks, half is carried between jane and basira. Annabelle feels consciousness slipping away, though from blood loss or something less human in nature she does not know. 

Martin is the one to notice annabelle has passed out, tapping janes arm with a gentleness not usually directed at something- someone who has tried to kill you at least twice. He tries to keep his words soft and measured, knowing how on edge both jane and jon are. 

For the first time, martin takes in how jane looks. With the deep shadows carved under her eyes and the slightly panicked look about her he realises she isn’t entirely unlike jon, albeit with more, newer honeycombed scars than him.  


He feels a strange pang of pity for her, seeing just how young she is, how young both of them are and just how afraid. Martin wonders how long it took for the corruption to take her fully, if she was filled with the same guilt and dread as jon when he noticed how far the beholding had taken him from human. 

He remembers the text he found after those awful weeks trapped in his flat, how much of that was Jane, the young, scared, worn Jane in front of him, and how much was the corruption? Martin shudders, suddenly feeling very itchy.

When they enter the hospital, it’s less crowded than Martin would have thought. When he and Jon went there a few days after the apocalypse ended, it was packed with people; both normal injuries and the lingering results of the more visceral domains. He supposes the initial rush must be over, and not many have been going out as much after everything that happened. 

There are still some signs of the change though, remaining tension in people still waiting for a fresh terror from their domain. The distant, misty look of the lonely-touched jump out at martin, still tensed legs of those the hunt had taken seem to set basira on edge, they always look as if they’re about to burst into a sprint.   
Things are getting better though. People are starting to forget, or at least they know it is over now. Almost everyone is in one piece and martin is grateful none of his friends were too scared of the end. Sometimes he wonders if the lonely hadn’t marked him, he could have ended up there. Martin shivers, imagining familiar mist curling round headstones and reaches out for Jon’s hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry that was rly short, I’m probably going to carry on with this I’m just super stressed rn.  
> Any feedback or comments are really appreciated :)  
> Thanks for reading


End file.
